Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Powder River 1876/Archive

Suspected sockpuppets



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as if the username weren't a dead giveaway they've now recreated Alexander Moore (soldier). Praxidicae (talk) 21:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Comments by other users
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Hi there, Thank you for your consideration. I'm really trying to contribute and do a good job, and I really care about the subjects I write about. I've learned a lot recently about how to be a better editor, and I will keep working to do better. Thank you, Powder River 1865 (talk) 23:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

 * I'm about to block them for DUH OBVIOUS. As for the Moore article, I am a bit loath to pull the trigger on it: it is fairly significantly rewritten, and while I didn't read/check the whole thing, it's not such an obvious copyvio anymore. Drmies (talk) 21:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: I'm not even going to block them right now; I'll leave that for the next admin. Yeah they are an obvious sock, and should be blocked, etc. But they also want to contribute and this article is an effort at rewriting. Drmies (talk) 21:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm in the same place as Drmies. Sure, they broke all sorts of rules, but looking at the stuff User:Powder River 1865 has been writing, these seem like well-written articles about important historical topics.  Rule enforcement is our way of keeping the spammers out.  For rule-breakers who write good encyclopedia articles, we have WP:IAR and a healthy dose of WP:AGF.  I suggest we make sure they understand what they're doing wrong, make them the WP:Standard offer, and welcome them (one of them) back to the team.  -- RoySmith (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the position of my colleagues above. However, this user created a second account to get around a block on their first account, rather than requesting unblock through the usual channels. While I understand the motivation to allow this user to continue editing immediately, I would prefer that the user write a convincing unblock request first before being allowed to continue edit. Another angle to this is precedent: if we make an exception for the user in this case, we invite all blocked users to evade their block, submit seemingly good edits, and get de facto unblocked as a result—without ever having directly addressed the reason for their block. For these reasons, I have blocked this account indefinitely, with a note on their user talk page that we would look favorably upon an unblock request that demonstrates they understand why they were blocked. Mz7 (talk) 19:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Just to double check before archiving -, you're inviting the sock to request an unblock, and leaving the master w/o TPA? Cabayi (talk) 21:00, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not a big deal to me whether the user requests unblock through the master or the sock account, but I understand your point (usually we have socks request through the master account), so I have restored talk page access for the master. Mz7 (talk) 02:49, 4 January 2020 (UTC)